Huddersfield contributes to international music vocals research project

The University of Huddersfield’s Dr Eric Smialek has made a key contribution to groundbreaking international music research on extreme metal vocals.

Dr Smialek recently visited the University of Utah to work with scientists  and several internationally-renowned metal vocalists. Their goal? To analyse professional vocal technique and vocal health within the specialised growls and screams of genres like death metal, black metal, and deathcore.

Part of the research is to prevent long-term vocal damage by uncovering exactly what the artists are doing physiologically. Comparing techniques across subgenres and individual artists also helped researchers to map the acoustics of different styles. They gathered a rich array of data to test hypotheses around vowel expression and listener perception.

A Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Smialek is two years into his project Extreme Metal Vocals: Musical Expression, Technique, and Cultural Meaning, which was awarded funding of £190,000 worth from the government-backed UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in 2022. 

Also central to the research on the Utah campus in Salt Lake City was The Charismatic Voice, a singing research community with over 1.7million subscribers on its YouTube channel. The Charismatic Voice’s co-founder Elizabeth Zharoff was a key sponsor who made it possible to gather high-profile, touring vocalists, and she was also present for the five days of research.

The state-of-the-art research techniques included laryngoscopy, where a thin tube containing a camera is inserted through the nose to examine the throat, larynx and vocal chords, on the singers from six leading extreme metal acts. 

“The laryngoscopy allows us to get an incredibly close-up view of the larynx. We can really see in detail what’s going on when these singers vocalise,” Dr Smialek says.

Secure and safe methods yield fascinating results

As Dr Smialek explains, special care was taken to leave the singers’ most valuable asset undamaged.

“The equipment at the University of Utah is specialised and very safe, thanks to Dr Amanda Stark and the team at the Voice, Airway, Swallowing Translational Research Lab. 

“Nevertheless, these are medically invasive procedures, so you need consent from the vocal artists. We asked them to perform with cameras inserted through their nose, or while lying down in an MRI machine or with electrodes in their neck. During all that, we also wanted them to make representative sounds so we could get the data we needed for the research.

“Elizabeth from The Charismatic Voice is also a singer and was concerned that the vocal health of the artists be paramount. So it was a complex balance, but we got some incredibly useful results.

“For example, Travis Ryan from Cattle Decapitation has been singing for 30 years and he has always been curious as to what was going on with him when singing. We showed him the monitor so he could see what his vocal cords  were doing in real time, and he couldn’t believe how his vocal tract was working.

 

The research is a truly interdisciplinary effort, with linguistics, musicology, physics and biology all featuring. 

Cutting-edge technology

It is the most advanced research into the subject so far, with machine-learning algorithms and interactive web applications in parallel to visual data from laryngoscopies, MRI scans of the vocal tract and electromyography (EMG) readings of muscle use.

“What I found especially gratifying was designing a large portion of the participation task design,” Dr Smialek adds. “Some of the most surprising images emerged from my prior research and recommendations. For instance, I asked the vocalists to do a gradual transition, singing ‘yowwww’ really slowly. 

“You might not normally think to do that, but it’s because we have these targeted corner vowels, that correspond to different configurations of the lips, jaws and tongue. Those resulted in some exceptional responses from the singers within the MRI scans.

Dr. Smialek had a chance to interview Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitated), and YouTuber/vocal coach Mark Garrett (Kardashev) to gather their perspectives on genre, technique and touring life as well as share some research findings.

“Speaking to Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy was great, she was really dialled into the research and there was a rich exchange of knowledge on a technical level.

“I met all kinds of great people who have presented me with quite a few future opportunities.”